Name: Jiae Kim Student ID# 800808842 Class: ENGL 1101 Professor: Debarati Dutta I am from South Korea

which is located between China and Japan. According to Korean government, the number of population is approximately 50 million in 2012. The main characteristic of Korea is that higher enthusiasm for education. It leads Korea to have elevated rate of entering a university. Most Koreans go to the university and graduating a university has become a requirement for getting a job. In case of me, I am a four years of Hongik university student, studying an English education and economics.

My school is situated in the center of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The region in front of the school is called as a Hong-dae area and it is famous for street of youth. It is a Seouls artistic hub and especially provides street art festivals and performances as well as music concert.

( The main entrance of Hongik university in Korea) At the center of such a youth area, there are Hongik university students and especially my department students. My department is an English education and it was established on March 1st in 1978. There is a main distinction between Korean education and the U.S: the point of beginning a semester is different. Actually, in Korea first semester starts at the first week of March and ends at the middle point of June. Accordingly, second semester begins at the first week of September and ends at the middle point of December. Therefore, every year in March, forty-five students are admitted as freshmen student at the department and begin to go to the school. The whole number of student in the department is approximately one hundred eighty. The main goal of the department is to train a future teacher to be able to play an effective role in a junior high or high school. Four years of Curriculum is evenly composed of literature, linguistic, learning and teaching methods, etc. Furthermore, native-speaking instructors teach students English and enhance the effect of

studying. Besides studying, English education has various activities and festivals during school year. For example, there are overnight orientations for new students, a field trip to explore historical sites, track meet and a sunlit day festival. I would like to introduce my department with its own special artifacts. The first is a name tag at orientation for new student.

English education orientation takes place at the beginning of every spring semester. The orientation is scheduled for new students to get school information and establish a close friendship each other. Students leave the school and have training camp for two days. Actually, I cannot talk about the orientation except a students name tag. A name tag is indispensible to attend orientation. A student organization prepared all students name tag in advance and even all professors. The name tag is made to be highly noticeable. To be specific, each students name is printed with white in black box. On the left side there is an emblem of the department and on the right side indicated Hongik university/College of Education/English Education. The contrast between white and black makes people notice a name effectively. Also, it is very convenient to take it off because of the tags string. They hang such a tag around neck during all official hours. The name tag is one of the methods to

be easily able to memorize other s name. Therefore, they can expose to have bunch of chances to become closer with new friends. During orientation, students are divided to several teams and each team participates in games. In the meantime, they gain a chance to break the ice and get acquainted with each other. In addition, students and professor are able to spend comfortable time.

Then, let us look into the two emblems of my department on the name tag.

The left picture was in 2012 and the other is for this year, 2013. Last year, a president at my department has

made the first emblem since the department opened. He wanted to make an emblem to symbolize the department. He tried to express the spirit of the Dep. so he undertook the work for a while and finally made the first emblem. On the other hand, the emblem for 2013 was made by a senior student, not by a 2013 president. This year president tried to provide a lot of chances for current students to participate in creating new emblem and therefore he ran a wanted for a new symbol. Many students, who were interested in design, took part in this announcement and one of the senior students won the prize against stiff competition. The first emblem shows a dragon, a sun, and English alphabets. For example, the shape of a dragon indicates the alphabet E as the first letter of English education. Each department generally has one specific nickname. My department is sunlit English education and it represents a deepest wish for considerate teaching to students in the future like sunshine. Moreover, dragon has been considered as a holy and powerful symbol and the picture of dragon put on the emblem with a desire of positive influence by the dragon. The name of the school is written by white characters. On the contrary, the second emblem does more emphasize the symmetric beauty. Twelve triangles and one circle represent a bright sun which suggests my department nickname. Inside of the circle, there is the arrow which indicates a token of Hongik university. This symbol is called forever smile( in Korean) and it shows the humans persistent effort by the establisher.

Thirdly, Festival in May!

Most universities in Korea have the biggest festival in May. Of course, my university is full of laughter of students and music during festival. Festival is the greatest event to students. To be specific, the feast generally continues for three days and each department plans the way to raise money for charity during the festival.

Last year my department opened Beach Party in three days for charity. Every student in English education assigned a role and played each role faithfully in order to progress the party favorably. The most part the students were careful was a poster announcing the event because it was difficult to present all information about party and draw other s eyes. Another department made a party plan so there was an invisible competition between departments. The following picture is a poster of my department for last year s festival. The students

wanted to differentiate their party and therefore choose a special concept, namely Hawaii.

They colored the main title with orange, green, purple, blue and purple. A palm tree on the right and Hawaiis greeting expressions below the title maximized an impression about Hawaii. On the right part the emblem of 2012 and the rough map of the party location. In contrast, on the left part a president and vice presidents name and cell phone number indicated. Except the main title, all letters and pictures were white and it intended to maximize the contrast between white and black for clearness.

If the festival in May is the hugest event in a year, the second largest event is a field trip to explore historical sites. The difference against a trip for an orientation is that students look for, discuss and correct errors on Kor-Eng translation signs at Korean historical sites as a

part of the annual school routines. The problems of errors on signs for foreign tourist have been raised up in Korean society and therefore the English education department constructed system of looking for and correcting those errors. This camp became an annual event and has contributed to fix the English errors in Korean society. It becomes to more focus on academic study so it comes into action under serious atmosphere.

Therefore a poster also gives earnest impressions and it totally different from one for a festival in every May. On this April 5th, the English department left a 7th trip to the ChungBuk province. Even if I could not attend the trip, I can gain a poster for the 2013 trip since all of information of the department uploads on the face book in real time. The upper half is the sight of the place the students go and the other part shows the place, time and date. The place they go is emphasized by bold and the bottom line maximizes contrast between white and black so it is highly noticeable. The right bottom part show the emblem of the department and the name of the school by bold letters. These kinds of artifacts provide a great influence on students and their studies. As

one of the member in the department of English education at Hongik university, I will make an huge effort on maintaining the spirit in the department forever.